Trafalgar and Boone and the Books of Breathing

by Geonn Cannon

  “I apologize for all the times I got in your way before you and Trafalgar became allies.”

  Dorothy laughed. “Don’t be. You provided me with a challenge. That’s something that is always welcome. But I will admit that I’m grateful we’re now on the same side.”

  Leola winked at her and wished Mazzi luck on her flight.

  “Everyone aboard who is going aboard. Next stop, Luxor! Four hours from now.”

  “Is that speed truly safe?” Dorothy asked as she climbed the side of the ship.

  “Perfectly!” Mazzi assured her.

  Dorothy had been seated in the center for their flight out since, being male, she’d been the heaviest of the three. Now Trafalgar had the weight advantage, so she was in the center. Dorothy was quietly grateful for that; even in the dark she didn’t trust herself to ignore the distraction of Mazzi’s neck. Not now that she was intimate in its taste and how it felt against her lips...

  Mazzi settled into the cockpit. “And if it’s not, I’ll feel a shimmy in the hull long before it becomes an insurmountable problem. I can adjust enough to keep her in the air if that happens.”

  “And if there’s a catastrophic failure for which you cannot correct?” Trafalgar asked.

  “I’m confident there will be places between here and there that aren’t a barren wasteland. Might be a bit difficult to find them in the dark, but don’t worry. I’ll do my best not to strand us in the desert.”

  Dorothy said, “Confident but not certain...? You have been to Luxor before, haven’t you?”

  Mazzi laughed. “I’ve never been to Egypt before! But I have a map.”

  Trafalgar twisted in her seat to look at Dorothy, who shrugged and made sure the harness holding her to the seat was snug. Leola backed away from the plane as Mazzi started up the engines. She looked back to make sure they were snapped in.

  “You ladies ready?”

  “As we’ll ever be,” Trafalgar said.

  “Good enough for me!”

  The plane lurched and Dorothy gripped the edge of her seat. She didn’t know much about the future of aviation, but there was one advancement she knew had to be right around the corner. The skies would belong to the first person who included enclosed compartments on their planes. She squeezed her eyes shut and ignored the wind on her face as the plane lifted off the road into the pitch black night.

  Chapter Twenty

  Beatrice tried to sleep but found she couldn’t. She tried going to sleep in Dorothy’s bed but even the familiar blankets and lingering scent of Dorothy’s perfume couldn’t calm her mind. The lingering effects of her concussion were completely healed, and she couldn’t help but wonder if her resurrection had something to do with it. She tried putting everything out of her mind, the way their captor ordered, but there was just too much weighing on her to completely erase it all. She pressed her face into the pillow, eyes squeezed tightly closed, but her mind refused to slow down. It conjured up memories of Dorothy. The taste of her, the smells, the way her lips moved when she dreamed.

  It was close to three in the morning when she gave up. She went into the bathroom and took off her pajamas, laying them over the rack next to Dorothy’s tub. Dorothy liked to consider herself a modern woman, but she was very influenced by her grandmother’s Victorian tastes. The four-poster bed, the claw-footed tub, and the full-length mirror positioned next to the sink. Beatrice had seen herself in that mirror a great many times, both alone and with Dorothy on those glorious occasions they bathed together.

  Now she angled the mirror and turned her back to it. She twisted her head so she could see the tattoo drawn onto her back. It was a tree with the trunk stretching from just below her shoulder blades down to just above her ass. The bare branches spread like skeletal fingers across her shoulders. If she let her hair grow long, it looked like the tree had sprouted leaves, but she usually tried to keep it at a more manageable length.

  There was no evidence of the damage she’d sustained in the crash. She remembered the pain, though. She would never forget that horrible and sharp sensation. She’d known she was dead. There was no doubt in her mind that there would be no recovering. Now she was back and she was alive. She was in a room she thought she would never see again. There was a row of creams and lotions lined up next to the small vanity and she picked up one bottle at random. She unscrewed it and smelled the contents.

  Dorothy on a sunny day, eyes shaded by the wide brim of a hat, standing on the banks of the Thames. She had been wearing a blouse with large shoulders and long sleeves. She’d been wearing gloves and, when she slipped them off for the walk home, her palm had felt slightly clammy. Beatrice had waited until she was certain no one was paying attention to them and brought the hand up to kiss the knuckles.

  Lying on the field in Wales, she’d resigned herself to never seeing Dorothy again. Never touching her, never hearing her voice. Now, thanks to Ivy Sever, she knew Dorothy was back in the right body again. All she had to do was finish the business with Amenemhat so she could come home and be properly reunited. She wished she had gone with her, concussion be damned. Dorothy needed her. Trafalgar needed her.

  At the very least, staying behind had proven to her that the quest to find the other elementals was better left forgotten. She’d wasted too much time and neglected her duties as Dorothy’s majordomo. She could move on from trying to discover her past. If Virago’s vision was to be trusted, that way only led to death and destruction. If it meant saving the world, she could live with her ignorance.

  But still... she wondered. She drew energy to her, feeling it seep through the air and gather around her fingers like a static charge. She could see the pale blue glow in the mirror as the power continued to grow. She rolled her shoulders and took a slow, steady breath. She gathered more power to herself, holding her arms out to either side and curling her hands up as if she was trying to catch rain. The tingling moved up through her arms and she watched as the ink in her tattoo began glowing. It was a pale color at first but steadily became brighter.

  It was harder to breathe now, but she continued drawing power. Her arms were shaking. Her chest was constricted but she still managed to inhale and exhale. Shallow breaths and sweat on her upper lip. Her entire body was trembling now, but the tattoo was bright enough to light the entire room. People could likely see it from the street, an unnatural azure shine coming from the upper floor of the peculiar townhouse tucked among financial institutions of Threadneedle Street.

  “Burn,” she whispered. The skin around the tattoo stung. “Burn,” she said again, baring her teeth as she focused her energy on the design. The tattoo seemed alive in the mirror now, the reflection of her body harder to see as the tree seemed deeper, sharper. Now she could feel the pain deeper inside, like swallowing some hot liquid and feeling it burn all the way down. Pain blossomed inside of her but still she pushed. She wanted to burn the ink away, wanted to be done with the elemental inside of her. She felt something wet on her lip and knew her nose was bleeding, but she wasn’t concerned until she felt the same moisture on her cheeks.

  She released her hold on the magic and let it spill from her. The effect was almost as painful as holding onto it, and she screamed as her body seemed to be engulfed in flame. The walls and floor shook violently and only then did she realized she’d been hovering a few centimeters off the ground. She put one hand out against the wall to catch herself as she collapsed, but she still must have lost consciousness for a brief time. Her next memory was lying on the floor, blood crusted on her face, and pushed herself up with shaky arms. She wet a washcloth and cleaned away the blood, still trembling and trying to catch her breath.

  So it would seem she couldn’t force the power out of herself. She couldn’t explore its origins to make peace with what she was. So what the hell was she supposed to do?

  Her introspection was shattered by the sound of something on the ground floor. She closed her eyes and slumped against the basin. Three intruders in the past week. Dorothy would have h
er hide when she found out what a pisspoor job she’d been doing of watching over the place. She grumbled and got to her feet, passing through Dorothy’s bedroom to grab a dress shirt before she went to investigate.

  Virago was standing in the front hall, the door standing open behind her. She wore a black cloak with the hood up to cover her face, but there was enough visible to confirm it was her.

  Beatrice grimaced as she descended the stairs. “I thought you agreed to cease your quest for the other elementals.”

  “I did. But I spent the entire trip home thinking. And I could not shake those images... those horrors he showed to me.”

  She brought her hand up to her temple. Beatrice was on the same level with her now and could see her skin was ashen, revealing dark shadows under her eyes. It had only been a few hours; the trauma must have been tremendous to have such marked physical effects so quickly. She stunk vaguely of smoke, as if she had just stubbed out a cigar on the front stoop. Virago raised her eyes to meet Beatrice’s gaze.

  “So why are you here?”

  “I can’t... be certain that I’ve fully conveyed the horrors I’ve seen.”

  “Trust me,” Beatrice said, “you got your point across very well. You don’t have to worry about me following any further leads.”

  Virago said, “But that isn’t enough. Your word isn’t enough. As I said before our abduction, we have been drawn to each other for our entire lives. You and I encountered each other purely by accident. Who is to say that won’t happen again? One of Lady Boone’s quests takes her to Kildare and you encounter Lasair? What if the air elemental happens to be there when you arrive? We cannot take the risk.”

  Beatrice narrowed her gaze. “What have you done?”

  “I’ve just come from Kildare,” Virago said. “You would be surprised at how quickly you can douse an eternal flame if you use enough water. She burned... so brightly. But when she ran out of oxygen she finally had no choice but to surrender.”

  “You killed her.”

  “For the sake of the world. And when I’m finished, I will seclude myself until our successors come of age and I will extinguish them as well. I do wish there was another way, Beatrice. I’ve come to respect you quite a lot in our short acquaintance.” She brought her hands up and flicked her fingers.

  Beatrice opened her mouth to respond but water poured out over her lips. She brought her hand up to try catching the flow, but there was too much of it. She gagged and coughed, choking on it. She backed away from Virago, who followed her and flicked her fingers again. More water filled Beatrice’s mouth. She couldn’t draw breath, couldn’t do anything but try to swallow as much as possible, but it was like trying to drink the ocean.

  “It will be quick,” Virago said dispassionately. “Just like going to sleep.”

  Beatrice remembered holding energy just a few moments earlier, how it felt like her lungs were going to be squeezed into raisins. She pulled that energy back and let it flow up her arms, over her shoulders and into her throat. She opened her mouth as wide as she could and expelled it like dragon’s breath, forcing out whatever Virago was using to manifest the water on her tongue back at her. Virago was weakened by exhaustion and easily knocked off her feet, stumbling back into the staircase she had pinned Beatrice to during her first visit.

  “You’re not thinking clearly.” She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. “We’ve never been the best of friends, but I don’t want you to suffer.”

  “Then don’t fight back when I stuff you full of the Thames.”

  Beatrice braced for the blow but was still unprepared for the strength behind it. She was lifted off her feet and carried through the window, arms up to protect her face from the shattered glass. Instinct saved her by putting up a cushion of energy between her and the ground. It gave her something to bounce gently off of and she rolled onto her hands and knees as Virago stalked out of the house. Her nose was bleeding, her eyes red with bloody tears. She held her hands out to the side, the fingers wrapped in a web of crackling energy.

  “All of your friends,” she said, “will die if we are allowed to survive. I’m only doing this to save them. Don’t be blind.”

  “You’re not going to stop, are you?”

  “When you and the other elemental are dead, I will go into hiding until the others come of age. The void must not be allowed to happen.”

  Beatrice closed her eyes. Virago was an evil woman, a terrorist, a murderer many times over, but she still wished there was another way. She planted her hands on the street and summoned energy up through the stone. She reached deep into the bedrock, the very frame of the planet, and drew it to her. She was an earth elemental, and she could access more of it than the average practitioner. Beatrice opened her eyes to see Virago pulling back for another magical blow.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Two columns of stone erupted from the street and twisted around Virago’s body. Beatrice bared her teeth and twisted her hands. The rocky snakes mimicked her movements and twined themselves around Virago until she was unable to move. Only her head was exposed when Beatrice was finished.

  “You can’t keep me trapped like this forever.”

  “I don’t intend to. I am so very sorry, Virago. It’s not in my nature to murder anyone if I can avoid it, but you’ve made it very clear you will not be dissuaded. This is the only way to stop you.”

  Beatrice closed her hand into a fist. Virago’s eyes widened in surprise and pain as the stone compressed and shattered her bones. She coughed up blood, head lolling to one side as Beatrice continued squeezing. The space her body occupied within the twisted stone became even smaller. Beatrice was trembling as she brought up her other hand, closed it around the fist, and sent a second wave of magical energy into the trap. Beatrice’s skin was slick with sweat, her feet planted far apart to brace herself as she put her hand on top of her fist and pushed down.

  The stone was crushed, flattened back into the street and taking the remnants of Virago’s corpse down with it. She stood up, her knees threatening to buckle, and she was very aware of the fact she was naked save for a sloppily-buttoned blouse. She looked in either direction for evidence anyone was seeing her scandalous display or had witnessed her brutal murder, but the street was blessedly empty at this hour. She took a moment to steady her breathing and walked back into the house.

  She would have to see about getting the window fixed before Dorothy got back from Egypt. But for the time being she would cover it with a shield of energy and work on a more permanent solution later. The only thing she could even consider doing now was finding somewhere soft to stretch out and fall asleep for the rest of the night.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Dorothy tilted to look over the side of the plane as they approached Luxor, watching the massive spread of ruins pass by underneath them. Mazzi found a place to land near the Precinct of Amun-Re, the place Trafalgar deemed to be where Amenemhat was most likely to visit first. “The sacred lake,” she explained once they were on the ground. “Priests used the water to purify themselves before performing any rituals in the temple. Given everything he’s been through since he was last in the presence of his god, there’s no chance he’ll skip this part.”

  “Jumping through multiple bodies, living in a statue for thousands of years,” Dorothy mused. “Yes, I do believe I’d want to wash up after that as well.” She turned and extended her hand to Mazzi. “Isidora, I also believe this entire endeavor would be ending much differently without your assistance. Thank you for everything you’ve done for us, and for the marathon flight on which you’re embarking.”

  Mazzi shook Dorothy’s hand. “Happy to do my part, ladies. You take care of each other. Get your pal’s body back. I’m mighty glad Agnes introduced us.”

  “As am I.”

  Mazzi looked at the timepiece on her instrument panel. “I’ll do my best to be lazy on the flight back, but I don’t want him getting suspicious. I will fly over the temple so you’ll have warning whe
n he’s nearby. Try to listen for me and stay out of sight after dawn.”

  “We will. Normally I’d say godspeed, but in this case, I’ll settle for safe travels.”

  “And to you, now and in the future.” Mazzi touched two fingers to her brow and saluted. “Look me up next time you need to go a long way in a hurry. I’ll be there.”

  Dorothy said, “And if I don’t need to go anywhere, but I still wish to... arrive...?”

  Mazzi’s grin became wicked. “Then definitely call me, ginger.”

  Dorothy stepped away from the plane and watched as Mazzi began taxiing. She would skip over to the nearest airfield - probably the airship docks on the banks of the Nile - to fuel up before going back to Giza for the second leg of her journey. Trafalgar waved goodbye as the plane lifted off again. She picked up the bag with her books and slung the strap across her shoulder as Dorothy did the same. They started walking toward the temple ruins.

  When the buzz of the plane’s engine faded and left only the night’s silence behind, Trafalgar looked at Dorothy. “The woman seems absolutely smitten with you.”

  “I have that effect on women.”

  “Hm. Has that ever become an issue? Anyone who didn’t quite adhere to your casual view on relationships?”

  Dorothy said, “There have been a few who needed to be let down easy. But for the most part, the women I spend time with aren’t looking for a relationship. How would that even be possible? We take what we’re allowed... fleeting encounters and a brief reassurance that we’re not always as alone as we feel.”

  “Hm. A bit more bleak than I expected when I posed the question.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, I appreciate the honesty.”

  Dorothy said, “You’ll get nothing else from me, if I can help it.”

  “You can expect the same.”

  Dorothy stopped and looked ahead. The moonlight was strong enough for them to see the pylons standing on either side of the entrance. The statues were positively massive; Trafalgar was completely dwarfed by them, one of the few times Dorothy could say she’d ever thought of her friend as looking small. The walls still looked remarkably intact, with only a handful of mud bricks broken or scattered around in the sand. Compared to the relative mediocrity of the Sphinx, Dorothy couldn’t help but be impressed.