The Philosopher's Flight
Page 39
“Good evening,” the man said. “I’m so terribly sorry to disturb you, but I have a special delivery. You are Danielle Hardin, are you not?”
“Yes,” said Dar.
“The editors at the Globe send their compliments. They wanted to make sure you received this before your departure. A gift in thanks for the time you’ve given them and in hopes for your success in Washington.”
He proffered the package to Dar.
“Oh, not another one,” she sighed.
Jake cut her eyes at me then smiled at the deliveryman. “Could you tell us what it is?” she asked.
The man looked to Dar, who nodded and then turned her back so she could retrieve her purse and tip him.
“It’s an eau de cologne of vaporized rose petals.”
“Oh, yucky!” Jake said. “Those always go rancid on the first warm day. But, we ought to send a note commending you on your service. A delivery at this hour. Are you out of the Cambridge depot?”
The man was watching Danielle instead of us.
“Yes,” he said, “the Cambridge depot.”
Jake reached across under the table and squeezed my hand. She put her left hand on top of her head as if to adjust her hair but left it there—the universal hover signal for distress.
I couldn’t say how, but I knew she was right.
“If you’d be so kind as to sign the receipt,” the man said, reaching under his jacket.
I stood, took two steps toward him, and drove my right foot into the side of his knee.
39
On November 21, 1897, when elements of the Spanish Army cut off two platoons of sigilwomen from the USSC encampment near Havana, Maj. Emmaline Weekes led a furious air assault to rescue them. Despite being severely outnumbered, Maj. Weekes’s hoverers drove off the attacking Spaniards with small arms fire and improvised bombs, saving more than two dozen of their comrades. In recognition of her valor in actual combat against the enemy, the women of the United States Sigilry Corps, as decided by plebiscite, hereby award to Maj. Weekes the White Ribbon with Crossed Sabers.
USSC Medal Citation, June 8, 1898
THE MAN’S LEG BUCKLED. He tried to get up, but I hammered my fist into the back of his neck and he fell to the floor. I threw myself on top of him, yanked my revolver from my pocket, and stuck it into his side. Jake slammed the door and threw the deadbolt.
“What are you doing!” screamed Dar.
“He’s not Harnemon’s!” Jake shouted. “They haven’t worn that style of hat in ten years, they don’t have a Cambridge office, and it’s the wrong-sized box for perfume.”
Dar stared at her, incredulous.
“He doesn’t have a moustache!” I added.
The man began to struggle beneath me. Jake kicked him in the groin with her pointy-toed boot. He yelped and ceased resisting.
“Stay down,” I said. “I’ve seen her kick a lot harder than that.”
“Not as hard as we’ll hit the three of you,” the man wheezed.
More of them?
“Dar, do you have any rope?” I asked. “Or a bedsheet to tear into strips? Something to tie him up?”
Danielle looked appalled. “I have a ball of packing twine.”
“Get it,” I said. “Jake, hog-tie him.”
“Do what?” Jake asked.
I tried to translate that into flier-speak. “Tie him wrists to ankles behind his back with, say, a running four-corner cross cinch or—”
“Got it,” said Jake.
I kept the gun pressed against his side while Jake tied him up. I found a .45 automatic in his waistband.
“Cute,” I said. “What else do you have?”
A short, double-barreled shotgun tucked into a loop under his coat and a knife in his boot, as it turned out.
As soon as she saw the weapons, Dar’s demeanor changed. “Who sent you?” she demanded.
The man didn’t answer.
“The Gray Hats? The Hand of the Righteous?”
A thump from the window cut her short. Like a bird hitting it or a rock. The pane was cracked in a strange spiderweb pattern—not ordinary glass, but rather layers of crystal with anti-kinetic smoke webbing between. Supposedly bulletproof. We heard a second thump. The window bulged inward.
“Is somebody shooting at us?” Dar cried.
“Turn the lights off!” I shouted.
Dar ran to shut off one of the gaslights and Jake dove for the other, plunging the room into darkness. Two more bullets thudded into the windowpane, knocking it out of the frame. It fell to the floor with a tinkle.
“Everybody stay down,” I hissed. Dar was pressed up against the wall a few feet from the window with Jake in the opposite corner. Both were well out of the line of fire. I kept myself flat against the floor beside the door.
“Dar, can you get us out of here?” I whispered.
“I packed my kit,” she answered, “but I still have one tube in—” She scrambled for her purse, which she’d left hanging on the back of the door, and groped through the pockets. She pulled a double-sealed vial out and removed the outer tube. She had just snapped open the inner ampoule when another shot rang out. Dar dove to the floor.
“Are you okay?” I called.
“Damn it!” she hissed. “It broke.”
“Message board,” Jake suggested. “To Addams and copy to Brian.”
Danielle sent the message and bolted back to her corner.
I could hear footsteps creeping up the stairs.
“I think there are more of them,” I whispered.
I slid along the wall and handed Jake the .45. I gave Danielle the scattergun.
“They may try to rush us,” I said. “If we have to shoot . . . Dar, pull both hammers back. Brace the butt against your shoulder. If they get in, fire once. If they’re still standing, give them the second barrel.”
I turned toward Jake, who could probably just barely fit her fingers around that enormous .45.
“Weekes, I’ve never—”
“It’s okay. By the right side of the—of the handle. There’s a lever?”
“Okay.”
“That’s the safety. Press it down with your thumb.” I heard a click from her corner. “Grip with your right. One finger on the trigger. Left hand to steady. Elbows loose but tight.”
Jake breathed the barest whisper of a laugh at the last, which was an old flier’s adage.
“Get ready,” I said. “I’m going to slow them down.”
I pulled back the deadbolt on the door. It creaked loud enough to wake the sleeping dead. My heart’s pounding shook my hands with its violence. I opened the door and slipped just far enough into the hall to get a look at the stairs.
The creak of footsteps resumed. I blew out my breath to steady my aim. As the first man rounded the corner, I pulled the trigger twice.
In the enclosed space of the hall, my underpowered little revolver thundered like an avalanche. The man fell to the ground and crawled back toward the stairs. His partner reached around the corner and fired wildly with what I suspected was a twin to the .45 I’d given Jake.
I retreated to Danielle’s room, slammed the door, and threw the bolt. With a little luck, we could make their next advance even clumsier.
“Anything to burn for a smokescreen?” I asked.
“The packing twine,” suggested Jake.
Dar lit the bundle of string off her stove’s pilot light.
“What do you want?” she asked me.
“Anything,” I said. “A semi-persistent concretion in front of the door. It’ll disorient their first couple steps.”
The twine put off a thin stream of smoke that Dar collected and congealed with a sigil.
“Dar,” I said, “how much longer to—”
Splinters of wood exploded out from the middle of the door, leaving a gaping hole.
Dar dropped the unfinished cloud of smoke and picked up the shotgun. Jake crouched as low as she could in her corner. Another shot from the hall pierced the doo
r, followed by the thud of a man throwing himself against the door and failing to knock it down. The man threw himself against the door a second time.
“Dar!” I called.
I waited until I thought the man was ready for his next charge then jerked the door open. The man stumbled into the room with his shoulder lowered. I ducked out of the way and Dar fired.
The man staggered but didn’t go down. My ears were ringing too badly to hear the second shot, but I felt a stinging across the side of my face and neck—the shotgun must have been loaded with fine birdshot. Still, it was enough to make the man crumple to the ground and for me to drop my revolver in surprise.
A second man rushed into the room and stumbled over his fallen compatriot. Jake shot at him once and missed wide. She shot a second time and nearly put the bullet through my eye.
“Stop!” I screamed.
Jake was probably half-deaf, but realized she had as good a chance of hitting me as him. Instead, she threw herself at the man, who shoved her off. That gave Dar just enough time to scoop up the mass of semisolid smoke and apply a hasty sigil. The cloud leaped at the man, swirling about his head and sticking to his neck and chest.
It was a parlor trick, harmless, yet the man screamed and beat at the smoke with his hands. He fell to his knees in a panic, choking and blowing.
I recovered my revolver, knelt beside him, and pointed the gun at his head.
“Don’t move,” I said. With my left hand, I drew a glyph to disperse the smoke.
The man gasped, spittle dripping from his lips.
“Dar, the twine. Whatever’s left,” I said.
With the remnants, Jake tied the man up. I rolled over the one who’d taken the shotgun blasts. He moaned. His shirt was shredded. Hundreds of tiny wounds pockmarked his face and chest. Blood seeped from the holes, but he seemed in no danger of exsanguinating. He was in no danger of trying to renew his attack, either.
I put a hand to the side of my face. It was full of the same wounds, ten or twenty of them.
“Jesus,” I said. My legs went out from under me.
“Robert!” cried Danielle.
“I’m okay.” I tried to catch my breath. I put my head between my knees and the world spun.
“Where’s he hit?” Jake demanded.
“I’m not,” I managed.
“We’ve got to get him out of here,” said Dar. “We’ve got to get all of us out of here.”
They pulled me to my feet. Dar’s eyes were furious and terrified as they searched me for some fatal injury. Jake’s chin jutted haughtily forward, but her bottom lip was quivering. She kept a tight grip on the sleeve of my shirt.
“Danielle?” a woman’s voice shouted from right outside the window.
“Hello?” Dar called.
“Are you okay, sister?” It was Francine—Mayweather had messaged the Threes, who’d been in the midst of their night-landing clinic and had flown over straightaway. “Put a light on and we’ll get you out.”
“No!” Jake cried. “There’s a sniper shooting at that window.”
“Astrid spotted him,” Francine replied. “Dropped a spare powder bag on his head. He never even heard it coming. She’s orbiting to keep watch.”
Dar turned the lights on and Francine perched on the windowsill. She slid her legs through and dropped into the room.
“There were about four more people running toward the building,” Francine said.
“Belle Addams’s men?” I asked.
“I doubt it,” Francine answered.
I relocked the damaged door and pushed the table in front. It wasn’t sturdy enough to brace the door, but it might slow them down.
“We need to go,” Francine said. She pointed at Jake. “Honey, let go of him and let’s move.”
Jake ran to Francine and flung her arms around Francine’s waist. They leaned backward through the window and launched.
Tillie swung in through the window next. “Danielle!” she shouted.
Dar looked at Tillie and the window.
“I don’t want to do this,” said Dar. “I’ll just hang over the edge and drop down to the street.”
“It’s seventeen feet,” said Tillie. “You’ll break something. Hold me around the waist. I’ve done this thousands of times.”
Dar relented and wrapped her arms around Tillie. They were away in seconds.
Essie took their place at the window and tentatively put a foot on the sill. A gust of wind caught her and she backed off to reapproach.
“Hardin!” shouted a voice from the hall. “Give yourself up.”
There was no telling how many of them there were.
“Put her out here in ten seconds or we’ll shoot our way in!”
I climbed onto the windowsill and swung my legs over. Easier for me to grab Essie than for her to duck in and out.
A shotgun blast holed the door in a dozen places—definitely not birdshot in that one. I was far enough back not to be hit.
“Hardin’s gone!” I screamed.
The men outside answered with a second blast, followed by a well-placed kick to the lock, which caused the door to spring open. Three men pushed into the room, shoving the table aside. They were older than the first group and looked much more comfortable with their weapons.
Behind them hobbled a gaunt, ghostly pale figure with ecstatic eyes—Gannet. He was wearing a bronze breastplate over his shirt to protect against sigils. His hands were clasped in front of him, like he was praying.
“Disaster will come upon you . . .” he intoned in his thin, high voice.
He glanced around the room, as if puzzled to find it empty, except for a man sitting with his legs dangling out the window.
“. . . and you will not know . . .”
Four men, two bullets.
“. . . how to conjure it away.”
I fired twice. The rounds took Gannet in the chest.
He staggered and sat down. He put a hand to his breast and pulled it away, confused. His breath came in wheezing gasps; spittle hung from his lips. He tried to say something, but couldn’t get any words out. With a trembling hand, he drew his revolver.
“Robert!” Essie screamed. She was right above me.
I threw my arms around one of her legs and she clamped the other tight against me. We cleared the sill but my weight was too much for her sigil. We made a slow, graceless crash descent. I hit the ground back-first and it felt like colliding with a brick wall at a dead run. Essie landed on top of me.
Above us came the repeated crack of pistol shots through the open window.
Essie put a hand to my injured face. “Oh my God,” she whispered.
“We have to run,” I croaked, my lips pressing against her palm.
She clambered to her feet and pulled me up. My joints felt as if they’d all slid out of place. My ribs burned. We stumbled down the street.
A large, open-topped motorcar squealed around the corner one block from us. I raised an arm against the glare of its electric lanterns. These would be their reinforcements. We were finished.
The car ground to a halt.
“Robert!” the driver cried.
Belle Addams was at the wheel. In the back sat two of Radcliffe’s senior smokecarving instructors, placid, dressed all in gray, their eyes chillingly intense. Each held a seething black cloud in her lap.
“Get in!” Addams shouted. Essie and I tumbled into the front seat beside her. She threw the car into gear and we raced toward Dar’s apartment.
“Did ours make it out?” Addams asked. “Are they alive?”
“All out,” I said. “We scattered.”
“And the ones who did this? Where are they?”
“Still inside. Eight of them, I think. We took down four. I shot—I—oh God . . .”
We pulled up to the building. I could hear the whine of a police siren in the distance, minutes away.
Addams leaped out of the car with the smokecarvers on her heels.
“Lily—double breach,�
� Addams barked to the first of her women. “Rosemary, hit the room with Billroth’s mixture. I’ll infiltrate around you.”
The old ladies nodded. The first added a few chemicals to her roiling cloud and drew sigils to make it coil into a fist-sized sphere, which she attached to the building’s door. The second poured a bottle of clear solution into her cloud and held it at the ready.
“Go!” Addams shouted.
The door exploded inward and the dense cloud charged up the stairs, unwinding itself, emitting a howling, rattling wail as it moved. The second smokecarver followed.
“The two of you, don’t move,” Addams said to Essie and me.
Addams took her own cloud from her handbag and sprinted up the stairs.
40
JUNE 1918
Mrs. Tyndale, advance with the left flank and end this! Give them hell and come safe home.
Mrs. Lucretia Cadwallader, Orders at the Battle of Halloween, October 31, 1862
THE LATE-MORNING SUN BEAT down on the Charles River as Mother and I wound our way along the footpath. The last of the serious rowers were returning their shells to the boathouse and the first of the pleasure boaters were appearing to take advantage of an exceedingly mild June day.
“You’re third on his list?” Mother asked me.
It had been a week since she’d rushed to Boston. A week I’d spent under guard—first in Moss Hall, then my apartment, and now during the daily excursions that Mother had taken to planning. I’d seen more of the city with her than during the previous year put together.
Gannet was dead, by my hand.
No, I chided myself, call it by its right name.
I’d killed him, though not cleanly.
Addams had incapacitated the Trenchers with smoke; the police had arrived moments later. They’d hauled Gannet to Massachusetts General, where the doctors had found he had a fractured sternum, collapsed lung, and internal bleeding from a nicked artery—probably survivable if he would have consented to surgery with a smokecarver to see to anesthesia and a stasis to help fix the blood vessel. Gannet had refused.
He’d lasted three hours, using his last breaths to draw up his final list of the two hundred philosophers whose deaths would destroy sigilry for all time.
“Yeah,” I said. “The detective only let me look at the first page. It’s not spelled right, but it’s me.”