Reticence

by Gail Carriger

  “Can I keep him if no one else wants to?” she asked Aggie.

  Aggie snorted at her.

  Anitra bent gracefully and retrieved the tube, not at all concerned by its source.

  One of the soldiers made as if he would interfere, trying to grab the tube from Anitra.

  Miss Prim bolstered up her parasol, flipped it spray-side and pointed it at him and his cohorts. They likely didn’t know that there was acid inside. But the action was threatening. Well, it was threatening if you were the type to be scared by an inside-out parasol pointed at you. The parasol spray mechanism was pretty indiscriminate, and the acid was strong enough to hurt humans, even if it was intended for vamps. Miss Prim may look like a silly fluff muffin, but secretly Spoo thought she was a bit of a bruiser.

  Something in Miss Prim’s expression conveyed this to the soldier and he backed away from Anitra.

  Anitra pulled a cork stopper out of the tube and fished about inside, retrieving a tiny roll of paper with a printed message. She read this quickly, and from the sharp liquid look she gave Lady Captain, she understood it, too.

  Before anyone could take it from her or do anything, she ate it.

  “Interesting choice,” said Spoo.

  “You think it’s from Percy?” asked Aggie.

  “You actually want my opinion?”

  “Everyone else is occupied.”

  “How’d old Percy get himself a sausage-dog mechanimal?”

  “Good point.”

  “Someone is helping us. Or them.”

  Aggie looked glum. “It’s probably Lord Akeldama related.”

  “Isn’t it always?”

  Aggie nodded.

  The guards were not pleased about the sudden interference of a flying dog, nor were they best pleased with Anitra eating his message. Not that they would have understood it. No doubt it was intended for Anitra or Lady Captain, and therefore in code. Toffs were like that, not enough to write plain English, had to learn to write a secret version of English, too.

  A few soldiers lurched at Anitra, annoyed.

  Then things began to happen fast.

  One of the guards shot at Anitra. She dropped to the deck. Not because she was hit, but because she knew how to behave in a gunfight.

  Aggie didn’t approve. Aggie didn’t like many people, but she was nicer to Anitra than most anyone else. So Spoo wasn’t surprised when Aggie shot the soldier who’d shot at Anitra.

  She didn’t miss. The man collapsed, bolt lodged in his shoulder. His gun clattered to the deck. One of Spoo’s decklings dove for it, tumbled, scooped it up, and leapt back up into the rigging. Another guard fired at him, but too late.

  “One down,” said Aggie with great satisfaction. She angled and fired at another guard. Dead on and deadly. Aggie had no mercy.

  “That’s two.”

  Several guards fired in their direction.

  Spoo and Aggie took refuge behind the clamp, which provided excellent cover as it was made of solid steel.

  Spoo peeked over the top while Aggie took the port side and fired from around it with her bolts. She didn’t have that many, so she took her time and aimed with care.

  “That’s three.”

  Miss Prim swept around, laying down a spray with her parasol, covering the three soldiers nearest the gangplank. The horrid smell of acid and burning rent the air. The soldiers screamed and those that had sense ran off the ship.

  “That’s six down total. Only six left.”

  “This is fun,” said Spoo.

  Aggie glared at her, no doubt offended that Spoo had the temerity to say anything positive.

  Willard grappled with one of the other guards, trying to muscle away his gun. Bork took one of the others straight on, clipped him hard under the chin. He used to box in the ring. The man had a set of fists on him, he did. Spoo thought he was just about the cream on the top of the milk.

  “Look at that hit!” she crowed.

  Aggie was glaring at her.

  “Righto.” Spoo whistled out a series of piercing instructions.

  Her decklings swung into action.

  Some of them actually swinging.

  Whoever had the filched gun was firing it, although not well, and clearly, he wasn’t confident about firing down into the now boiling crowd on the deck.

  The soldiers’ bullets kept flying. It looked like a few Custard crew were in danger. Spoo, however, had little doubt in her airship’s ability to win the day. She let her decklings cause havoc for a few minutes, to even the odds. Then she whistled them back out of harm’s way and into the rigging.

  The whole ship lurched suddenly.

  Virgil yelled a question from the pit.

  A deckling yelled back from the squeak deck.

  Spoo and Aggie held on to the clamp while The Spotted Custard listed hard, losing height on the port side.

  The deck around the clamp began to creak loudly as it buckled and splintered along all the weak points Spoo had cut.

  Nips appeared. “Dropsy is ready.”

  “You don’t say? Pull in the gangplank then, quickly now.”

  Nips glanced around and then scuttled down the clamp to the dock, ran through the city, around to the gangplank, and then back up to the crank. He was called Nips for a reason.

  Lady Captain’s strident cry rose above the fray. “Pull the plank!”

  The captain, Miss Prim, Anitra, the scaly lord, the Japanese head soldier and his six remaining compatriots, and the deckhands were all mashed together, skidding towards the port railing while still grappling with one another. Luckily, most of the guns had stopped firing as the soldiers scrabbled for purchase and defence. Those guns had all run out of bullets or been dropped when the ship tilted.

  The Spotted Custard listed further. Spoo noted the dropsy bobbing off the forward bow.

  Lady Captain yelled, “Spoo, cut the clamp! Virgil, get us out of here. Depuff like you mean it!”

  Spoo whipped out a crowbar and started wrestling it into the torn deck. The tilt had done its worst, but the Custard was mainly made of bamboo and that was darn flexible stuff. Holding on to the clamp, to keep herself from sliding, Spoo used her free hand and her weight to try to encourage the deck to split further.

  “Give it here.” Aggie latched her crossbow to her belt.

  Spoo frowned but handed the crowbar over. Aggie’s arms were twice as big as Spoo’s, if not more so.

  Aggie started in on the deck.

  Spoo crawl-climbed up to the railing.

  She braced herself on the clamp, knowing it was a risk because if they managed to get free, she might go with it. Using her legs, her strongest assets, she began to beat the Custard’s flange and railing, hoping to break the last solid hold the clamp had on her ship.

  She felt the rumble of the main boiler kicking in and hoped they weren’t too off-kilter. There came a point, if the kettles tilted too far, that the safeties would shut the boilers down.

  The airship lurched violently.

  A loud clunk indicated that the gangplank was up.

  A great gout of steam wafted around them, which meant the boilers were fully operational.

  Aggie let out a whoop of delight. “That’s my boffin!” She resumed crowbarring with a fierce expression.

  The whump whump of the propeller shivered across the tilted deck. Spoo prayed they were in a position that kept the blades from hitting Edo.

  The Custard lurched and began to right herself.

  “Come on, old girl,” shouted Spoo, kicking at the railing with everything she had.

  The deck underneath her rippled, and then came the horrible wrenching sound of fracturing wood.

  “Roll, Spoo!” cried Aggie, letting go of the crowbar and allowing herself to slide across the deck towards the opposite railing.

  Spoo gave one last mighty kick, then bounced herself up to a crouch.

  “Oui up!” came a cry. A rigging rope hurtled towards her. Spoo caught it, looped it into a hold, and kicked herself
to swing free. Behind her the deck broke apart. The railing splintered off and peeled away from the ship with a screech.

  There was now a massive gaping hole where the clamp had been. Spoo could see right through to the stateroom.

  The Spotted Custard lurched to right herself.

  Immediately Virgil depuffed, the propeller ramped up, and the ship let out her customary farting noise. Never before had Spoo been so pleased to hear that sound.

  They floated away from the Paper City, sinking fast. Virgil, smart lad, steered them quickly in and directly under Edo, where it would be hardest for city defences to shoot them.

  The fight, which had descended into a port-side crush, resumed as the deck levelled out. It was mostly fists and blades now, which Spoo preferred, it meant the odds were better.

  Primrose was laying about with her parasol. She’d presumably used up her spray and darts, but she had other defences. Lady Captain was grappling unsuccessfully with the head soldier. Captain wasn’t a fighter, not in her human form, and she was pregnant, too. But she was doing her best. Anitra was right there, trying to help.

  Bork, Willard, and the decklings swarmed the remaining soldiers.

  The scaly lord righted himself with dignity and stood a little apart from the scrapping, apparently still undecided as to which side he was on.

  Spoo had a feeling he could sway the tide. Especially if he was a form-shifter of some kind. It was a full-moon night, after all. The moon wasn’t up yet and she hoped he wasn’t one of those who went mad.

  Then there came this funny sort of yodel, and Rodrigo Tarabotti leapt into the fray.

  Finally!

  The man moved through the crowd as if the people he hit were helping him shift position, like an acrobat at the circus. He had two double-sided knife things. Silver blades – real actual silver – on one side and hard wooden spikes the other. Sundowner weapons.

  Rodrigo Tarabotti had trained his whole life to kill only two things, vampires and werewolves. And mayhap his grandfather had known there were others, and mayhap his father had known and not said anything. But the Catholic Church saw only vampires and werewolves. So that was what he’d killed.

  But those skills turned out to be pretty darn effective on other kinds of shifters and flesh eaters, and he was bloody brilliant against humans.

  Spoo never understood the term cut a swath, something to do with fields and harvest, Virgil likely knew what it meant. But Rod sure cut a swath through the crowd.

  Anitra said something to her husband, something in Italian, and Rod turned in the direction of the scaly lord.

  This seemed to make up the man’s mind. He unsheathed his long sword and swung it out in a wide arc, taking a defensive stance behind the naked blade. Then he waded in, clearly intent on the Lady Captain or the Japanese head soldier. Unfortunately for him, that meant he was also threatening Anitra.

  Rodrigo was there.

  Spoo dangled from her rigging and watched in awe.

  Rodrigo leapt in front of the lord, catching and deflecting his sword. He made this twisting movement with his double-edged blades that slid the sword harmlessly away and would have shattered a lesser blade.

  The scaly lord twirled, supernatural fast, and came at him again.

  But just as fast, Rodrigo’s blades were there to intercept. He ducked out and away, assessed the lordling out of dark eyes, then flipped one blade so it was wooden end forward. He drove the stake in and down hard as he could, hitting the man heart-side, in the chest.

  Spoo winced. But the sharp stake was deflected by the lord’s armour. It cut in and down along his left shoulder, tearing his robe sleeve and opening a long gash along his upper arm.

  The blood that beaded forth was dark and slow. The cut instantly started to heal.

  Definitely a supernatural.

  The lord gave a roaring hiss noise.

  Rodrigo reassessed his approach. He dropped one of his knives to the deck and reached out fast, touching the man’s bare cheek with his fingers. Then he raised up the wooden stake again.

  Then Anitra was there, a hand to her husband’s arm, calming and sure. Voice low, she spoke intently in Italian.

  Spoo leapt to the deck and ran over to them. She slid in and retrieved Rodrigo’s dropped blade. The balance was topping. Following his example, she held it pointed forward, but with the silver end to the back of the scaly lord’s neck. He might not notice her but Rodrigo and the captain did.

  “He’s not on their side,” explained Lady Captain. “Apparently, he’s as much a prisoner as Lady Sakura. Has been all along. In fact, she is held trapped by her connection to him and is being used to keep the city in place. He is held trapped by his connection to the city, which has something to do with plumbing. Apparently, when Edo was on the ground, before it split and floated up into the air, he provided the water. It’s confusing. He’s not on our side either. But there’s no need to kill him.”

  Rodrigo looked at his cousin. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Pity.”

  Spoo saw him realize then that the lord’s blade was up against his own back. It would have taken little effort to split him open. Rod wrinkled his nose at his predicament.

  “I call it a draw,” said Lady Captain, ruefully. “But we’ve subdued the others, so the whole fight is ours.”

  Spoo maintained her position and looked around.

  Bork and Willard were sitting on top of the head soldier. Of his six remaining compatriots, one was curled over an Aggie-administered crossbow bolt, one was collapsed insensate (possibly from one of Miss Prim’s darts), two were trussed up by deckling artifice, and the other two had their hands loose and open while Nips stood before them, shaky hand holding the retrieved gun. Aggie went to join him, crossbow at the ready.

  Nips was a terrible shot.

  Anitra said to the captain, “The message inside the metal dog was from a contact ground-side, using Goldenrod’s code. Intended for me.”

  “You trust this contact?”

  “The Wallflower? Yes.”

  Miss Prim started at that. “Didn’t Percy say…?”

  “Yes, Prim. Anitra, go on, please.” Lady Captain was in full command snobbery.

  Anitra continued, “She has Percy and Arsenic safe. They want us to meet them in two hours, at Hakone hot springs. We should be able to find it on a map. She specifies they need Lady Sakura, and Rodrigo must go along to balance the lady with preternatural touch.”

  Lady Captain nodded and looked hard at Rod. “What took you so long?”

  Rodrigo glared at his captain and spoke in his strongly accented English. “Full moon, little cousin. If we drop low, we got the werecat going mad. And that new lady beast. I locking down monsters.”

  Anitra pointed at the lord. “He, too, becomes beast.”

  Rodrigo swore in Italian.

  Spoo thanked heaven that the moon wasn’t up.

  Lady Captain made a tutting noise. “I thought he was a vampire type.”

  “No,” said Anitra.

  “What beast, exactly?” asked Miss Prim.

  “The Wallflower did not say.” Anitra looked at the scaly lord, then asked him something in Japanese.

  He cracked a smile, an actual smile.

  Spoo was amazed.

  He didn’t answer, but he did bow at Rodrigo.

  Rodrigo gave him a narrow-eyed glare.

  “Play nice,” ordered Lady Captain.

  He bowed back.

  The lord rumbled out something.

  Anitra interpreted, “He said there is nothing on this ship that could hold his beast.”

  “Well, that’s awfully arrogant. We do have the Lefoux tank.”

  “Stick him in with Formerly Floote’s decomposing body? Isn’t that rude?” asked Miss Prim.

  “To whom, him or Formerly Floote?”

  “Would he fit?” asked Spoo, making her presence known at last.

  The lord turned, then started to find a silver blade at hi
s back.

  Spoo gave him an apologetic grin and handed the fantastic weapon back to Rodrigo. “Nice poker,” she said, reverently.

  Rodrigo gave her an oddly impressed look, and then holstered the blades. They seemed to vanish somewhere about his person in a seamless manner. Spoo was suitably awed.

  The scaly lord gave a slow blink at Spoo, then turned to Anitra and spoke again.

  The Japanese soldiers within hearing distance cried out in fear or horror or anger.

  Anitra interpreted. “He says that it matters not. He cannot shift this high up. If we get him home before moonrise, all will be well. He is free now. His contract is broken. Edo will run dry.”

  “What contract?” said Miss Prim, who worried about such things.

  “It seems that the moment they let the Lady Sakura leave the city, his indenture was broken. Or whatever they call indentures in these parts. Us breaking free of the clamp counts as them letting her leave the city.”

  “He’s on our side now?” Spoo pressed.

  Anitra squinted. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  Spoo said, “Dropsy is ready when you are.”

  “No need. We’ll depuff the whole ship and—”

  A tremendous staccato cracking rent the air at the same time as the crow’s nest let out a holler of warning.

  A military dirigible had dropped down and under Edo, found them hiding, and opened fire.

  Bork and Willard leapt to their one gun and fired, but that was all they had. They’d no more bullets and no way to further defend themselves.

  “Orders, Captain!” came Virgil’s frantic voice.

  Rue winced. “Guess hiding isn’t working. We can’t outrun them, not crippled as we are with extra bodies aboard. Virgil, make for the grey. Spoo, ready the dropsy!”

  FIFTEEN

  It’s in the Plumbing

  It became abundantly clear that with both fox-lady and scaly lord susceptible to full moon they needed Lady Captain and Rodrigo with them for balance. Assuming the Wallflower’s message about balance meant neutralizing any tethers with preternatural touch. Considering the fact that no one had any idea of how long it would take them to get where they were going, better to be safe than sorry when trapped with supernaturals.