“Same place.”
“Shame.” Amethyst moved up towards the blackboard.
Jenson watched the twins and Stephen drawing on the board, figures and symbols went up that meant absolutely nothing to him. They might as well be speaking a foreign language. He hadn’t eaten, and his stomach was clenching, bile was rising in his throat and only part of that was the lack of food; the stench he had picked up from the other men did not leave him feeling good. The truly bad feeling came from understanding that if the New Jacobites managed to make the Royal Barge drop from the sky, and if, by some miracle Queen Victoria did survive, then the gang were all to ready to kill her.
“We have to leave here no later than half past twelve.”
Stephen turned around. “Noon. We need to be transmitting by one o’clock, which means we need to be in place before one, which means we need to be on Apollo Hill before then.”
Jenson nodded. “If that’s what we need, then that’s what we’ll do. I’m going to go and find Blanchard, because if we’re going to get you two where ‒”
“Two?” Amethyst demanded. “There are three of us.”
“You’re not going.”
Jenson was surprised that Jade made the statement he was still trying to frame in a way Amethyst wouldn’t object to.
“Yes I am.” The twins were nose to nose now, equally determined.
“You’re staying here, where you’ll be safe.”
“Actually,” Stephen said, drawing attention to him, “she’s going to have to come with us.”
“I am not taking my sister into the middle of an angry mob when I can’t protect her.”
“But we can protect her,” Stephen said. Stepping back, he pushed on one of the shelves and the whole book case shifted, swung out. Drawn like moths to the flame, the group gathered around to see a veritable arsenal of different styles of A-Guns, most of them much bigger than the one Amethyst was keeping about her person. “They’re all prototypes, but they all work and they’re all safe for the user. If Amethyst, Jade, and I work on the transmitter, we can get most of the work done before we have to leave. There’s a tractor and trailer on the farm that we can use, I’ll drive up the hill, you lot and the machine in the trailer, the rest of you can form a protective ring around Miss Forester‒”
“Amethyst,” she insisted.
“Amethyst can make sure the machine is working on the move and if any adjustments need to be made, she can make them while we keep anyone from getting to her.”
Jenson nodded. It had its risks, but he knew everyone would play their part and Amethyst would be willing to take the risk to do what had to be done. “Sounds like a plan.” He stepped into the hidden room to select weapons.
“No.”
The declaration came from Maker as he stood firmly in the workroom doorway.
“Maker,” Amethyst tried.
“No,” he repeated firmly.
“Well, I’m going,” Bobbie stated.
“You shouldn’t.”
“And you shouldn’t be so over-protective.”
Amethyst moved away from the weapons and a little towards Maker. “Maker, I appreciate that you want to protect me, but there are some things you can’t protect me from, and this is one time where the overall risk is greater if I avoid the personal risk. I have to go. So, you are either with us, or you stay out of it.”
Jenson could see the struggle in Maker’s clenched fists, his overly upright position, the muscles tightening his jaw. The desire to keep someone safe and the need to protect the monarch were equally important to him. If only he knew the things that Amethyst had already done, he wouldn’t be so afraid for her. Finally, Maker turned to Jenson.
“Montgomery and Chalmers left, I suspect they’re joining the New Jacobite protest.”
Jenson nodded, turned to his right and saw a converted shotgun. The bulbous aether chamber assured him of its longevity and power. He grabbed the brass barrel and held it out towards Maker. “Well, if you shoot either one of them, I’ll not arrest you.”
Chapter 55
Is this what seasickness feels like?
Amethyst put one hand on her stomach and steadied the transmitter with the other. They’d just about managed to get all the work done before they’d clambered into the trailer. Thankfully, Dickens had made her take time to change into her leather trousers, which was making this all much more comfortable. What had come as a surprise was that Dickens too had donned a pair of work trousers and taken up a gun to join the crush in the trailer.
Stephen drove, pushing the heavy tractor over fields and routes he knew to get them most directly to Apollo’s Tower. Jenson had taken point on the rear of the tractor to protect Stephen while he drove. Amethyst sat in the middle of the hay strewn trailer with Jade, Blanchard, Dickens, Bobbie, and Maker. They had a selection of weapons, mostly aetheric, but some conventional. Stephen had demonstrated how to use the various weapons; they weren’t experts, but they’d do well enough and at least they wouldn’t kill anyone.
Monty’s ancestral pile was a dot on a distant landscape as they bounced and bumped over the crest of a hill and the rutted gateway into another field.
“Oh, no.”
“What?” Maker demanded, then he stood as best he could to look across the trailer to where Jade could see the fields they were heading for. Amethyst watched his perfect features freeze into that unreadable mask. Couldn’t be good. From her position in the bottom and middle of the trailer Amethyst couldn’t see, she could strain and stretch up, but there wasn’t enough room with the five bodies around her for her to see anything. She looked instead to Bobbie.
“Big crowd.”
Amethyst swallowed as those around her re-gripped their weapons and took stances that would allow them to cover the entire perimeter. The fact that she was right in the centre of that circle made Amethyst’s stomach turn over. She looked at the machine in front of her. This was what they were really protecting. They didn’t have to get as far as Apollo’s Tower. That was north of the estate and the Royal Barge would be coming from the south. They only had to get within 500 yards of it, still too close, but the transmission from this machine should counter the transmission from their machine, and if their calculations were right, they would deaden enough of the engine-stopping transmission from the New Jacobites that the Royal Barge would simply float past untouched.
She placed her hand on the shell of the transmitter, the other went to the metal floor of the trailer. The differences in the two vibrational patterns reassured her.
“Is that working?”
The shout was Jenson’s and she just heard it over the sound of the tractor and the increasing roar of the crowd they were approaching. She nodded and gave him a thumbs-up. He turned back to the front and raised his own aetheric shotgun.
“Sir!” Blanchard called from the rear of the trailer, pointing to what Amethyst guessed was the back edge of the crowd. Maker, Blanchard and Dickens raised their guns and fired in unison.
“Yes!” Blanchard yelled, then turned to Dickens with a broad grin. “Good shot!”
“What happened?” Amethyst asked.
When the young woman turned, her eyes were sparkling. Apparently this was Dickens having fun. “Maker got Monty, Blanchard got Sir Giles and I downed Willimena. They’re all twitching on the grass now.”
There wasn’t time for more, already the tone of the crowd had changed, and it sounded angry. Dickens turned back to her post between the two men.
Amethyst’s heart was thumping, her stomach clenching and threatening revolt, her head was pounding. She checked the sound gauge Jade had put together; the transmission was well within the limits they needed. The cancelling wave emission would travel ahead of the tractor and build up in the aether field of the atmosphere. That was what would hold the transmission they were trying to counter. The worry was the build-up from the other transmitter, from the acoustic weapon itself. They didn’t know how long it had been
transmitting, but there was a reasonable chance that it had been on for hours, possibly all the hours since Jenson returned to the estate. Would their actions be enough?
Stephen’s calculations said so. And she was certain the work she and Jade had done.
Jenson’s gun barked.
The baying crowd was coming closer. The people around her were tense and ready. She couldn’t see over the edge of the trailer, so she kept her eyes on the gauge. The needle was starting to dip. That would be because of the proximity of the other machine. They’d discussed stopping the other machine, and all Jenson had said was that it was covered; no further details were forthcoming.
As the others started firing, Stephen brought the tractor to a halt. There were angry shouts, the sound of bodies falling. More shots, more and more.
Amethyst couldn’t see over the trailer, but she could see up, and there was the Royal Barge rising gracefully over the horizon. She looked across at Apollo’s Tower. The only time she’d been there, Monty had proposed, the least enticing marriage proposal she’d ever received. Now she could see, in the open area at the top of the tower, there was a machine, not entirely dissimilar to the one she was sitting beside. She checked the gauge again.
The needle was dipping. She shifted the dial on the side of the machine. No change. She moved the valve on the transmuter, allowing more power through the mechanism. A jolt on the side of the trailer had her grabbing the machine so it didn’t fall. The trailer was steady again. The needle returning to the green area on the gauge. A high movement caught her eye, a projectile coming over Maker’s head. She shifted to her knees, bodily covering the transmitter.
The impact smashed into her lower left ribs, forcing the air from her lungs. Smacking her body into the transmitter. The pain was high, but she had to check the machine. The gauge was in the right area, the machine was working. All those around her were working hard to keep the crowd at bay. Jenson stood behind Stephen, both firing rapidly. Jenson was to one side, then a man appeared clambering up on the other side of the tractor. Maker was nearest, but he was busy with the people near him. Amethyst grabbed the handheld A-Gun from the holster at her hip, pointed towards the man and squeezed the trigger. He yelped and fell away.
Amethyst looked up to the Tower, the fighting seemed to be over and someone was by the mechanism. She watched her gauge - suddenly the needle was up too high. She brought the valve on the transmuter back. The needled settled; they were emitting the right counter-frequency again. Whoever was in that tower had stopped the acoustic weapon, and now all there was to do was keep this one transmitting until the Royal Barge was away.
The cerulean sky was unmarred and the Barge, the beautiful, sleek Mark 12 was now so close Amethyst could see the polished brass, the lacquered wood; the Royal standard painted on the underside of the basket.
Suddenly the blasting around her became a distant thing. She concentrated on the airship, searching desperately for signs of failure she hoped not to see. The machine was working, the barge was floating on unhindered. “It’s done!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “We can get out of here!”
Only they couldn’t. Another stone sailed towards her, but she managed to dodge it. Twisting, she picked the fist-sized rock and hefted it, throwing it straight at the man heading for Bobbie over what looked like a sea of twitching bodies. She threw hard and straight, it cracked the man on the forehead and he went down like… well, like a stone, she thought. The other stone was to hand, the one that had left her with the pain in her ribs. She picked that up and threw it into the approaching melee. Grabbing another gun she moved up to the front of the trailer between Jade and Maker, who were busy defending against the crowd. Thankful for trousers, she clambered over the tow hitch and up onto the tractor beside Jenson.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“Get back!” Maker ordered, even as she found a solid sitting position.
“We’re done now.” She pointed to the Royal Barge now disappearing behind the Apollo Tower. “We can get out of here.”
Stephen looked around, looked at the field of people; the angry mob and the unconscious. “Even if the crowd ran away, I can’t drive over the fallen.”
The words were still coming, as one man on the ground jerkily got to unsteady feet. He looked around, saw Jenson on the tractor with a gun in his hand.
“Roy?”
“Temp! Run!” Jenson aimed, and the big man, finally sober, saw the error of his ways and ran. As he started running, he grabbed a few of the others and they all started running away. It wasn’t enough, but it was a start.
A blast behind them. A movement above. Amethyst looked up in time to see a ring of yellow fly overhead and suddenly expand into a massive net that crackled and danced with aetheric light. It fell over about twenty people, then drew together like a purse on a string, bunching the people together and making a hole in the sea of humanity. Another of these aethernets moved over head, a little to the right and dragged clear the conscious and the helpless alike.
“There’s your path!” Jenson shouted.
Stephen stowed his gun and fired up the engine. More of the athernets were deployed, those who had been struck with aether shots early in the encounter were starting to regain consciousness, and, showing some sense, were running away. As more ran, the mob lost cohesion and suddenly they were all running, running away. Amethyst had to grab the exhaust pipe of the engine to avoid falling off. Then an arm came around her and she was tight against Jenson’s side.
“There!” He indicated the plating behind the driver’s seat. “Hold there.”
Her left hand went to the plating, surprised that her fingers were able to curl under, giving her a solid hold. Jenson’s right arm moved from around her back to the weapon. With longer legs, he was able to brace himself as Amethyst couldn’t and his first thought was always to protect.
Looking forward, she saw at last where the aethernets were coming from. “Great-Aunt Flora!”
Resplendent in her black gown, the onyx beadwork sparkling in the sun, Great-Aunt Flora sat on the Bathhurst Chair, like a deadly spider, spitting deadly webs at unwary victims. There was a gun across her lap that Amethyst knew she could wield with deadly accuracy. Great-Aunt Flora was in the driver’s seat, controlling the chair that even now chittered, legs moving independently of each other to keep them steady. That alone was frightening enough, but the large, net-flinging machine beside her was the real cause for concern. Edwina stood behind it, loading it, aiming, another net arched through the sky and the last aggressive group were caught up. The two women were beaming as the tractor approached them, the bodies that had been in the way having run from the terror of these makeshift war machines.
Amethyst looked at Great-Aunt Flora, the most compact bundle of formidable determination and action she had ever known. She’d never loved or admired her more than she did in that moment. Her only hope was that she could grow into being half the woman Great-Aunt Flora was.
“We thought you might need a hand with crowd control, deary!”
“And a very welcome hand it was too!” Amethyst called back.
“Edwina!” Stephen called.
“Well, you didn’t think I was going to let you have all the fun, did you, darling?” Edwina called across to her husband, who looked shocked and happy, proud and confused all at the same time.
“I’ll love you whatever you do, you wonderful woman!”
Chapter 56
Amethyst looked across at Dickens as she sat demurely in the corner of the travelling lounge of the chartered airship, Gladstone beside her in the cat box. No one would ever know that this was the woman who had stood like a warrior and protected her mistress while battling side by side with her own love. The fire and passion had been obvious, and not something Amethyst had ever expected to see. She’d always known that there was more to Dickens than showed under that restrained lady’s maid exterior and she hoped to see more of that in the future.
They’d al
l surprised her, especially Great-Aunt Flora. Another one who now sat demure and refined, talking to Lady Garrington-Smythe, for all the world as if nothing had happened. They were all together again. Bobbie at Amethyst’s side, Maker and Violet on the opposite side of the lounge, Violet keeping them slightly apart from the rest. Blanchard standing ready should his master require anything.
Only Jenson was missing. He’d said, as a police officer, it was his job to remain and tidy up some of the mess, though Amethyst had the distinct feeling that there was more to it. In fact, as he’d moved away from the group, she’d gone after him, stopping him for one moment.
“We have a great deal we conceal.”
He agreed.
“Don’t conceal too much from me.”
The smile was gentle and a little sad. “I’ll come and see you as soon as I can.”
But as she looked around the airship, she was amazed again at how they each concealed so much. Violet hid her violence. Maker hid his shame. Great-Aunt Flora hid her wildness. Jade hid his natural inclination. Lady Garrington-Smythe kept all their secrets and each of them in check. Jenson hid his true Parliamentary commission to seek out and stop Quinn. Even Blanchard and Dickens hid their relationship in company like this. Of all of them, Bobbie hid the least, she was who she was, like it or not. Amethyst liked it. It was liberating.
But what of her? What of Amethyst Forester? What did she hide, even from herself? She hid so much of what she knew. She hid her fear, for what else could she do with it? If Vostock’s employer was still coming after her, then the threat was far from over. Most importantly, she must learn to hide her attraction to a certain gentleman, and in every way discourage others from interest in her. Three failed marriage proposals were quite enough for any woman. She looked to the basket and Gladstone curled in a circle, safely sleeping the journey through. The cat was about the only thing she could afford to love unconditionally.
She smiled. If she became a solitary cat-spinster, soon enough no one would want her for anything.
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