23
daniel meets his match—the gang-up—lethal looks— a sudden caterpillar—the big banger— midair collision—eviction notice
If Daniel had a flower for every time he thought of Alice as he searched Starkthorn Castle for Dr. Snodgrass, he would not have been able to walk at all, due to being completely overladen with roses. He did not consider it in such terms, of course; rather, he calculated his thought-to-step ratio as being so high it overwhelmed decent mathematics.
He could not regret making love to her last night. To have had just that small part of her—that physical pleasure, between one mission and the next—even knowing he could never have the whole. To have told her a mere whisper of the truth about how he felt for her. These had seemed like impossibilities even a day ago. Like a dream, a year ago. And now they would live forever in his heart, behind barricades, barbed wire, machine guns, where not even A.U.N.T. could get at them. Strictly speaking, he should not have done any of it. But he found he could not disapprove of himself.
That was all he found, however. Ten minutes’ effort did not uncover Dr. Snodgrass (although he did come across the Earl of Sandwich, trussed up in the laundry room, impatiently awaiting a ransom). Frustrated, bemused, and hearing the pirates begin to arise, cries of tally hoooo! resounding through the castle, he decided to join Alice in the cottage to discuss their next move.
So focused was he on seeing her again, touching her hand, inhaling the serene freshness of her scent, watching the slow, lush sweep of her eyelashes as she—
“Hello there,” said a cheerful male voice.
Daniel reacted instinctively, as a consequence of which he discovered, when next he blinked, that he was pushing a man against the frame of Starkthorn Castle’s open front door, one knee shoved into the fellow’s back while a carotid restraint around his neck wordlessly promised unconsciousness or death at any moment Daniel wished to advance it.
“Nice reflexes,” the man remarked, and Daniel realized he’d just attacked Ned Lightbourne. He would have apologized and stepped back at once, but a gun barrel pressing against his spine recommended against this.
“Good morning, Bixby,” Cecilia Bassingthwaite said behind him. Her tone was cool, pleasant, but the metal of her gun was also cool, significantly less pleasant, and Daniel knew she’d shoot under the least provocation. “If you would like to die some other day than this one, I suggest you release my husband.”
Daniel removed his arms from around Ned’s throat and held them up in surrender. “I do beg your pardon,” he said. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
The gun was lifted away, and Ned turned with a smile. “Don’t worry, old chap. Who amongst us hasn’t almost murdered an acquaintance while lost in thought?”
Cecilia shrugged her mouth in agreement while she holstered the gun. From inside the cloth sling draped over her shoulder, baby Evangeline gave Daniel a drippy grin as she chewed on a small wooden sword.
“Will you join us for breakfast?” Ned asked, brushing back his hair with the kind of nonchalance that suggests one more wrong move and Daniel would never move again. “I’d love to hear all the gossip, such as why you no longer work for Alex, why you are wearing a piratic earring, and why you appear to be some kind of government spy infiltrating the society of my friends and family.”
The charming smile gleamed, and Daniel warned himself to be very careful indeed. He was reluctant to die just as he’d secured Alice Dearlove’s affections.
“Breakfast sounds good,” he said. “However, I must rendezvous with Miss Dearlove in our—”
He turned to point, and his arm froze halfway through the gesture.
“—cottage,” he finished blankly as said domicile jerked and shuddered away from the ground.
“Oh dear,” Cecilia murmured. “It seems Miss Dearlove is departing without you.”
“She would never do that.”
“Loves you too much?” Ned said.
“It would break Regulation 11,” Daniel answered. “There must be trouble.”
He was about to begin a futile ground pursuit when suddenly Ned caught his arm, twisted it up around his back, and set a dagger to his throat.
“Sorry,” the pirate said with a blithe lack of sincerity. “No offense. I just need you to listen to what I have to say, and I suspect this is the only way you’ll do that without trying to kill me again.”
Daniel considered protesting but had to admit it was true. Even now, watching the cottage lurch higher, a homicidal terror seared through his nerves. Alice moving through the skies haunted him, phantom-wise. One stiff breeze and that building was going to fall apart. And if he lost Alice, he would fall apart.
“You can’t catch her by running,” Ned said, his tone so aggravatingly calm it was just as well he had Daniel restrained. “We’ll take you in our house.”
Daniel’s pulse bashed hard against the dagger blade. “You’d do that?”
Cecilia smiled at him. “Just imagine what Charlotte would say if we failed to help you.”
All three of them shuddered.
“But we must hurry,” Cecilia continued, “before the other guests see us.”
Ned released Daniel and they set off at a run across the grass to where the rose-swathed brick cottage known as Puck House awaited, smoke drifting from its chimney. Evangeline chortled piratically with every step, and Cecilia told her, “We’re going on a lovely escapade, yes that’s right, coochy—uh, I mean tally ho! It’s going to be such fun!”
Daniel frowned. Watching the A.U.N.T. cottage swoop and jolt on an ungainly course eastward did not feel like fun to him. It felt like the Great Library of Alexandria was aflame in his stomach.
The red front door of Puck House opened before they reached it, and a young woman dressed in black, with dark ringlets tumbling from her mobcap, saluted jauntily.
“I didn’t expect you back so soon,” she said as they rushed into the small, warmly lit entrance chamber. “Please excuse the mess of ectoplasm and pitiful moaning. I’m still in the middle of exorcising today’s ghosts.”
“It’s fine, Pleasance dear,” Cecilia answered, even as Ned closed the door behind them and began dashing in and out of rooms, shutting windows. “Would you please take Evangeline for a little while? We are just going to help Mr. Bixby here with a spot of hot pursuit.”
“Of course, miss,” Pleasance said, reaching for the baby. “Shall I bring a tea tray up to the cockpit?”
“That would be excellent. Come with me, Mr. Bixby.”
She began speaking the flight incantation as she led the way up a series of carpeted stairs. Books were stacked at the side of each tread, and on shelves in the landing above, and lining the walls of a bedroom Daniel glimpsed as they took a short corridor to a staircase rising into the cockpit: a cozy attic furnished with plump sofas, cushions, and baskets of toys. Lush golden lamplight illuminated an array of bucolic artwork; furniture polish scented the air. The large oak wheel overlooked a gable window, and next to it stood a child’s high chair with a play set of sextant, telescope, and lockpick cluttering the tray.
Having spent years in the shambles of Alex O’Riley’s battlehouse—and then months in the pristine environment it had become after Charlotte moved in, bringing with her a squad of cleaners and decorators—Daniel felt strangely wobbly at the experience of this homey battlehouse with all its books and family comforts. So wobbly, indeed, that he actually used a word like wobbly to describe his feeling.
Cecilia strode to the wheel, still incantating. As she set her hands upon it, the house glided up with an ease that spoke of her skill. “Pardon me, but are you certain Miss Dearlove did not just leave?” she asked as she held the cottage to a smooth, rapid incline. “After all, no pirate would have stolen your house. We might shoot it down, but it would go against our code of ethics to steal it.”
“I know that,” he assured her. “But I also know Miss Dearlove would not depart without me. For one thing, she cannot manage the flight incantation. I suspect we’ve been double-crossed, perhaps by someone with a grudge . . .” He paused as his thoughts began lining up neatly toward a conclusion . . . “Someone with a ladder, who knows how to use the incantation to make a ceiling collapse, and who happens to have disappeared. Snodgrass.”
“Well, have no fear, Mr. Bixby. We shall catch them.”
“Hm.” Gazing out the flight window, he was forced to squint against a painfully bright glare of sunlight. “I do not see the house.”
“It has disappeared beyond those hills,” Cecilia said. She smiled at him, but Daniel did not smile back. He had served this woman dinner in Alex and Charlotte’s house, watched her rock her baby to sleep with a pirate lullaby (“Mama’s going to steal you a diamond ring . . .”), and listened to her chat with Charlotte for hours about shoes and swords. But in this moment all he could think was that even the most dreadful Wisteria Society member feared Cecilia Bassingthwaite for what she might be capable of doing, due to her grim heritage.
It eased his mind somewhat.
“Trust me,” she said. “The world is not large enough for them to hide from me.”
Once Puck House cleared those same hills, however, the A.U.N.T. cottage was nowhere to be seen.
“Hm,” said Cecilia with mild surprise.
“Hm,” said Daniel in a considerably dark tone. He crossed his arms tightly, as if doing so would prevent his heart from beating right out of his chest.
“Could they have landed?” Ned suggested. He had brought up the tea tray and, having just served Cecilia a cup of tea, was now pouring whiskey into another for Daniel. He moved with such languid calm, Daniel wanted to bash the tray over his head. The gurgling of the whiskey as it poured from bottle into cup sounded like quicksand sucking time into its airless depths, and Daniel had to force a four-count breath upon himself just so he knew he wasn’t suffocating.
“They might have gone to ground,” he agreed. “But if we circle to search, and they have in fact flown ahead, we’ll never catch up.” He heard a tapping noise and looked around in aggravation for what was causing it—only to realize his own foot was responsible, knocking fretfully against the floor. He gave it such an intense scowl, it went still.
“Why would this Snodgrass kidnap Miss Dearlove?” Cecilia asked. “Has he lost his heart to her?”
“Not yet,” Daniel muttered, and sent a memo to himself: Obtain a spoon for the extraction of Snodgrass’s cardiac organ. Then a memory rose: Mrs. Kew handing Alice and him their fake wedding rings and intoning, “What the mission requirements have joined together, let no one put asunder . . . but if they do, these rings will reunite you. Snodgrass designed them specially.”
Yanking the band from his finger, he peered at the words inscribed on its interior. “Coniungo cum socium meo,” he read aloud.
Immediately the ring began to tug against the prevailing gravity.
“ ‘I connect with my partner,’ ” Ned translated. “What a charming inscription for a wedding ring.”
“Actually, it’s a tracking device,” Daniel told him. His hand followed the magic, and he smiled grimly. “Starboard, if you please, Miss Bassingthwaite. One hundred and twenty degrees from the front door.”
Murmuring Latin, Cecilia turned the wheel as directed. The house veered, tilting against the flow of the wind, and increased its speed even more.
Tap-tap-tap. Daniel forced his foot into stillness once more and almost sighed, thinking of Alice’s beautiful, restless fingers. Emotions were pitching wildly through him, sharp as knives and equally dangerous. Thoughts began stuffing gunpowder into every instinct they could get hold of.
“Have a drink,” Ned urged, holding forth a cup. Daniel glared at him, and Ned immediately stepped back. “Then again, alcohol might not be wise at the moment. Cecilia, darling, if I should be killed by Mr. Bixby’s look, I give you permission to remarry.”
Cecilia huffed a derisive laugh.
“One hundred and thirty degrees,” Daniel snapped.
Puck House slipped into the new course. So competent was Cecilia’s piloting, and so well articulated the stabilization phrase of the incantation, that it almost seemed as if they sat on the ground, despite that ground blurring past, far below. Although Daniel rationally knew they were moving at speed, he wanted to pick up the house and throw it at the horizon. But all he could do was stare out the window, foot tapping again with an unfamiliar sense of helplessness, fingers gripping the wedding ring as tightly as fear gripped his heart.
Snodgrass had better enjoy his flight, because when Daniel caught up with him he was going to take the villain apart, piece by piece—by spoon or by hand, or perhaps by a damn incantated toothbrush—then transport him to a hospital like an ethical man should do, ensuring that quality medical care put him back together—just so he could take him apart all over again.
Alice opened her eyes slowly, afraid of what she might see. So much sensation throbbed inside her, it felt as if she made at least seven respectable persons. Every limb and bone ached, and every thought shouted at every other thought in such a clamor, she wished someone would take off her head. But checking herself with bleary-eyed trepidation, she saw just (1) woman seated on the floor with her (2) legs stretched before her and (3) hairy caterpillars grinning at her in the most hideous way.
She blinked wildly, and as her vision came into focus, she realized what she’d seen was Dr. Snodgrass’s mustache stirring as he grimaced with the effort of tying a final knot in the ropes that bound her to the cottage’s steering wheel.
“I say, you’re awake!” he exclaimed, sitting back on his haunches. His hair was in disarray, his eyes bright with what Alice suspected to be LSD (Lunatic Scientist Disorder). “How remarkable,” he said, “considering my ingenious device sent the ceiling falling to pieces on top of you!”
Alice peered achingly beyond him to where a narrow length of timber leaned against the dust-covered sofa. “That is only one plank, Doctor. And I do believe it’s just plywood. Yet again you have failed.”
Snodgrass’s face flushed scarlet. “I have not failed, what! You’re the one tied up! And when this cottage crashes in London with you inside it—I having first made my exit using my emergency escape hat—the bomb will detonate upon impact with the ground. Boom! Then who will be the failure?! Go ahead and scream with despair while you still can, before I gag you! Ha ha!”
“May I point out one small flaw in your plan, Doctor?” Alice asked calmly.
“Flaw?! There is no flaw!” His eyes narrowed. “What flaw?”
“The fact that I am not tied up.”
He had only the briefest moment to frown in confusion before she extracted herself from the inadequately knotted rope. With two quick, efficient strikes against his neck and jaw, she rendered him neatly unconscious. He toppled back with a thump, his mustache reverberating.
Shucking off the rope, Alice got to her feet. “I’d utter a pithy witticism,” she said, “but I have a city to save.” (Besides, she could not think of one.) Brushing ceiling dust from her shoulders and skirt, she turned to evaluate the situation.
“Bother.”
It took only one glance to ascertain that matters were dire indeed. Dust and cobwebs had fallen everywhere. The sofa was ruined. Coils of rope, gunpowder packets, and other accoutrements of maniacal vengeance lay scattered about the floor. Worse, the tea supplies had tumbled from their bench during the cottage’s unstable takeoff. It was going to take hours to get the place tidy again.
Not to mention that her fingers burned with stickiness from the lingering tape residue.
Oh yes, there was also the fact of a whopping great bomb in the middle of the room.
“Someone was overcompensating, I think,” Alice muttered, casting a grim look at Snodgrass’s sprawled figure before turning to consider the view from the flight window.
Farmland stretched beneath her, dotted with houses. The horizon offered nothing more than a luminous haze—but Alice knew London lay beyond, and she frowned.
There existed now no danger to the city’s population. She would ultimately do whatever necessary to save civilian lives, even if that meant crashing the cottage into an empty field. But she was reluctant to die just as she’d secured Daniel Bixby’s affections.
At the thought, her wedding ring seemed to tighten around her finger. She adjusted it abstractedly. Where was he? Did he fear her kidnapped? Or was he even now sending a telegram to A.U.N.T. headquarters, reporting her as delinquent?
No. She shook her head in denial of that possibility. She knew that he’d know she’d never leave him, and also knew he’d know that she knew it. (She paused, checked back through that sentence, then nodded to herself in agreement.) Daniel would absolutely come for her!
After all, Regulation 23 required it of him.
However, there was no time to wait for rescue. Rolling up the sleeves of her bodice, she marched across to the wooden crate and tried pushing it toward the front door.
She met with immediate success!
But only if her goal had been to strain several muscles in her back, get a splinter in one finger, and not move the crate even half an inch.
“Confound it,” she muttered. Then taking a determined breath, she applied her posterior to the edge, set her legs at an angle, and pushed with greater force.
This time she got further!
Insofar as she strained all the muscles in her legs as well as her back.
Opening the crate’s lid, she scowled down at the bomb. She saw clearly now what she’d not noticed before: incantation phrases scratched into the metal casing. She smelled the dynamite. Peering closer, she even read The Big Banger™ along its length. Several buttons, switches, and red and black wires offered false hope—for she understood the explosive was bound in the magic of the incantation, and no amount of button pressing or wire cutting would disarm it.
She turned back to the scientist, resolved to rouse him and make whatever threats necessary for him to reveal the defusing process. Her view of him, however, was blocked by his fist propelling toward her at speed.
Even as Alice’s brain strove to process what it was seeing, her body reacted. She ducked, and as Snodgrass punched the empty air, she slipped around behind and shoved him hard. He tipped forward into the open crate, and Alice slammed the lid on his back.
“What!” he screamed.
Alice lifted the lid once more, intending to heave the man’s entire body in with his bomb, but he took her by surprise, kicking at her legs. As she stumbled, he hauled himself up and came at her, fingers hooked like claws, face contorted with rage. He began attacking her in such an undisciplined manner, Alice could not respond sensibly. They wrestled across the room. Alice twisted his arm, Snodgrass ripped her bodice, Alice punched him in the midriff, Snodgrass shouted an old Latin word.
The cottage door flung open in response. Cold wind screamed into the room, snatching at Alice’s hair, chilling her blood. The building rocked wildly as its stability magic was overcome. Snodgrass’s emergency parachute hat tumbled out. Snodgrass himself, bug-eyed, cackling with what must surely now be described as professional lunacy, shoved Alice in the same direction.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw a vast, bright emptiness, and realized she had only moments left to live. A “privacy of glorious light” would soon be hers. The irony of her brain quoting Wordsworth at this juncture invigorated her. Bending at the waist, she shoved her shoulders against Snodgrass’s torso and rose with as much force as she could summon. The scientist flipped over her head and—uttering a high, squealing cry of I say!—fell right out the door. Alice slammed it shut behind him.
And tossing back her hair, she said pithily, “It seems your fancy has taken flight, Doctor.”
The cottage shuddered as if in laughter at her excellent wit. Alice felt rather smug for a moment. Then she recollected she was still in mortal peril, and ran to the wheel. It spun back and forth in magical defiance of gravity, and Alice grabbed the spokes, dragging it with teeth-clenching effort back to a centered course. But the wood trembled in her grip, and she knew she would not be able to hold it for long. The magic was too awry, the threads of stabilization loosened by wind. She tried desperately to recall the incantation, but all she could think was willows whiten, in a habit of self-defense that would kill her if she did not break it in the next few minutes.
Then a shadow filled the flight window. Looking up, Alice stared uncomprehending as Dr. Snodgrass came into view, grinning at her like a madman.